I run a small production framing company building 2-3 tract homes per month in southern Or. As we are very production oriented I am always looking for ways to improve our effiency. Recently I have noticed other framing crews building houses without snapping walls or laying out plates using only the foundation as a reference. My question is this, can these houses be square,plumb, or even the right dimensions? The poured foundations are close but not prefect,we typically have to adjust somewhere to make everything work. Is this way of framing being done in other parts of the country. Would like to hear from finish carpenters,cabinet installers and other framers who have followed behind a house this way.
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eyebalsquares and windageplumb!
LOL
Welcome to the
Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime.
where ...
Excellence is its own reward!
Cute saying but not much help.
You really expected a serious reply to a laughable practice?no- not every single wall has to be lined out, but you have to start straight and square or wastye all the time on the rest of the job chasing and correcting for mistakes.Better?
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Yes, as a matter of fact it is. Was just wondering whose out in field teaching these kind of shortcuts. We build a quality product that we can be proud of. Worried that the almighty dollar might push quality one more rung down the ladder. Been framing for 27yrs seems like every year it becomes more like a paycheck than a profession to most guys.
Are you saying that they don't snap chalklines for the mudsill installation? Or you saying that they don't snap lines for walls, or both? I'm not a framer, but It would seem if you don't make those little corrections in the initial floor framing, and then build straight walls, it may bite you in the a$$ when you go to frame & sheet the roof - BTW - are these trussed or stick framed roofs? Possibly even when you sheet off the floors if it is enough out of square, depending on what type of floor joists you are using.
If I hired a crew and they didn't snap chalk lines for walls you can be damn sure they would never be invited back, and they wouldn't save much time either because of all the harrasment I'd give em checking their every step of the way.
Look for replys from Blue Eyed Devil - he is very big on framing in a efficeint manner.
Edited 1/30/2005 2:26 pm ET by DIRISHINME
Sounds strictly hack. You'd only be asking for trouble. Could potentially compromise your truss engineering (not to mention screw up the cabinets, flooring, etc., etc.), and could you imagine having to come back and "fix" walls that are in the wrong place? (my crew was once hired to do just that, and it was $9000 in labor!)
Does snapping lines take that long? Here's a thought - maybe they're using a laser? We used to snap our longest outside wall first, and that would be our reference for snapping the rest of the house. Seems like you could do the same thing with a laser, but I've never tried it.
Nailbender
sounds like a guy that used to work with us from Roseburg Oregon, we called his nails, roseburg ringshanks, he bent a lot.
are you over near Larry Haunn???
maybe as someone else posted, they get the mud sill good and go from there
I doubt it, sounds like a speed crew that is just told get em up fast, sell em fast. we got one of those around here, one of the biggest builders in town too. They follow their foundation. The supervisor comes in to lay out plates for window and door locations, and intersecting walls, and goes to next house. Cres are told, here is the materials, use em, dont wait, you got two days to frame this house. If they dont, they are gone. Fired, call the temp agency, hire some illeagles and go.He blows through a lot of subs.
Probabally does 100 houses a year, advertising and payoffs to realators etc, are big time, (our inspectors are all good honest guys in town) Lots of gingerbread and eye catching stuff to hide the blemishes.
As far as trusses lining up with bad walls. Order them 1 inch short and float em to fit, works for flat ceilings great. Or run cantalever trusses and float em.. Use a 1x facia board so it can follow the truss tails, get a gutter up fast, hides the waves.We dont do any of that, but seen it done with above builder and from a guy that used to work with them.
Ah the american dream. Is it owning your own home, or making as much money as you can and then run.
So are you trying to compare yourself, who sounds like you do it right, to someone who is doing it wrong, in my opinion.
Guess it depends on the quality wanted
and if I sound a little bitter, well when we do quality, and am alsways compared to the gingerbread fast cheap crap, yeah I get a little bitter some times about the above kind of builder. Sorry , probabally offending some out there now.
are you over near Larry Haunn???
Got a chuckle out of that one.
When I got out of production framing several years ago, it was because of the "cheap counts, quality doesn't" mindset that was pervading the industry in my area. I would literally have superintendents tell me that our crew produced the best homes with the least call-backs and problems, and that the drywallers always complimented our framing because it made their job faster and easier - yet they weren't planning on using us anymore unless we dropped our prices.
I saw big custom homes built with structural beams omitted, problematic roof framing that would be guaranteed to start sagging within a few years, studs framed to the slab with no bottom plate and only blocking between them (I'm not kidding!), trusses cut, ...and I've heard big custom builders respond with "if the inspector doesn't catch it, then I'm not going to worry about it."
Anyway, I feel your frustration. And I know there are people out there who value quality work, and are willing to pay a little more up front to save a lot of money and headaches down the line.
"Like all the other nations, we worship money and the possessors of it- they being our aristocracy, and we have to have one. We like to read about rich people in the papers; the papers know it, and they do their best to keep this appetite liberally fed." - Mark Twain in Eruption
whats that mean "over near larry haun"?
blue.... you irish bastid..
if'n i was framing a wall 150' long , you can damn well believe i'd have my transit set up to check it .. and i'd snap it out too..
you're calibrated eyeball has spots on itMike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
Mike, when you look down a 150 long foundation wall, and see one small section that has a 1/4" dip in it, you don't need anything else to "prove" that straight is straight.
The laser isn't going to make something straighter than straight. The 1/4" section that had a crook in it was very east to deal with. We simply used a straight sill plate in that section and didn't force it in to fit the irregular foundation.
The building that we did was the straigthest in the project! I think the other guys snapped lines in the wind!
blueJust because you can, doesn't mean you should!
Warning! Be cautious when taking any framing advice from me. There are some in here who think I'm a hackmeister...they might be right! Of course, they might be wrong too!
Nailbender, the snapping of lines guarantees nothing in the way of squareness although it is often a necessary evil when prepping for straight walls.
I'm cuious about your type of house...is it on slab or on a basement or crawl space?
Last year, I framed a 6 unit condo built on a basement . The rear of the building was 144' long and I could clearly see that it was straight as an arrow except for a 1/4" dip in one of the middle units. Since I knew I was going to use the back of the building as my base line and square everything off of it, I instructed my mechanics to install the sill plate flush with the foundation everywhere except in that one very small section. I instructed them to install it hanging over 1/4" at the middle unit.
IF you were to walk up and see us taking measurements and square lines off of our "unsnapped" wall line, you might assume that we were skipping an important step in assuring quality, but you would be wrong.
The moral of the story is that you can't assume that every snapped line will deliver quality, while unsnapped lines are automatically poor quality. You have to have more facts to draw a competent conclusion.
blue
Just because you can, doesn't mean you should!
Warning! Be cautious when taking any framing advice from me. There are some in here who think I'm a hackmeister...they might be right! Of course, they might be wrong too!
The houses are between 1600 and 2200sq', crawlspaces, trussed roof. Was just wondering if myself and my crew, 4 of who are 20yr veterns of trade were becoming obsolete. Whose out there teaching this kind of work. I build ever one of my jobs like it was going to be mine. thanks for the input
Blue,Are you now saying that you don't snap lines on the foundation for your sills? How does snapping lines on a foundation guarantee nothing in the way of squareness?If you snap lines on the foundation and square them up and also checking a diagonal measurement are you saying that's not more accurate than just following a foundation?If you have a back wall that's 40' and a side wall that's 24' would you just eyeball the two walls square?Joe Carola
Blue,
Are you now saying that you don't snap lines on the foundation for your sills?
Joe, I've never worked on slabs much....99% of the houses I've done are on basements. The top of the foundation wall is so ragged, and narrow so there really isn't any room to snap a line for the sill plate.
We do use a variety of methods to get the sill plate straight and often my eyes are plenty good enough to get the small sections straight.
The story I told was a foundation that was 150' long and straighter than I could get it if I decided to use strings to set the sill too. The wind plays havoc on 150 lines...besides, the wall was already straight, all I had to do is set the sill flush to it.
How does snapping lines on a foundation guarantee nothing in the way of squareness?
I was merely pointing out that the presence of snapped lines doesn't guarantee square lines. The obvious explanation is that the mechanics may have used poor techniques and snapped unsquare lines.
If you snap lines on the foundation and square them up and also checking a diagonal measurement are you saying that's not more accurate than just following a foundation?
I would not advocate "just following a foundation". If I noticed that two adjacent sides of a foundation were perfectly straight, and I was going to use them as my baselines, I might pull out my calculator and check to see if they were in fact square. If they were square, I'd install my sill without snapping any lines and feel confident that they were square....after all, when I work on foundations, the concrete is already set and dry...if it was square at 10AM when I checked it, it would still be square at 10:05 when the sill plates were fastened.
If you have a back wall that's 40' and a side wall that's 24' would you just eyeball the two walls square?
No.
Blue
Joe CarolaJust because you can, doesn't mean you should!
Warning! Be cautious when taking any framing advice from me. There are some in here who think I'm a hackmeister...they might be right! Of course, they might be wrong too!
I can't imagine not snapping the lines.
Today we just got done putting the cap (first floor deck) on my foundation. Even though I trusted the foundation; the guy I hired to help me, set up a PLS-5 laser, shot centers and square, doublechecked with right triangles, and then snapped lines all around. Everything depends on square and plumb. That deck went down *really* smoothly. We weren't out by an eighth, mostly less, no matter where we pulled tape from, because the initial lines were right on.
PS *BLACK* chalk shows up really well on everything, surprisingly. I'd always used blue or red.
Nailbender,
You would never have caught me doing that but I know a bunch of guys who do. In their minds, they laid out the mudsills, they cut square ends on the floor joists and attached a ribbon to it. So, if they just follow that then it will be square and straight and parallel. Right?
Like I said, would have never caught me doing it that way, but I now a ton of guys who do.
Not sure where you're from but around here not too many builders care what the rough frame looks like. The last half dozen or so houses I framed were in a development. $3.25 a sq ft. The other framer in the development had six helpers. four on work release. He drove a late seventies Ford van and was the only one who could drive. The other two helpers were on the " you can never driva agian as long as there is booze on this planet" plan. First house I got a real plan. Second house it was a legal pad sized photocopy. No details, no cross sections. Just bang up a house for me.
Just one more corner to cut in the race to be cheaper and faster than the van loads of illegals who are now doing most of the framing around here.
You would never have caught me doing that but I know a bunch of guys who do. In their minds, they laid out the mudsills, they cut square ends on the floor joists and attached a ribbon to it. So, if they just follow that then it will be square and straight and parallel. Right?
Robert, I would say that if you follow a straight, squrae fondation, and cut your ends square, it would be square.
Do you think it would be unsquare?
blueJust because you can, doesn't mean you should!
Warning! Be cautious when taking any framing advice from me. There are some in here who think I'm a hackmeister...they might be right! Of course, they might be wrong too!
This is what I do for a living. Here in Canada, (Toronto) There are thousands of houses going up. Our government allowed 15000 illegals in to help with the trades shortage. As you can imagine with the ammount of homes being built here. The influx of 'new' tradespeople there are some shady practices. I've seen one crew building a porch roof, the rafters lined up so poorly that on man had to stand on the end of the sheet to get it down enough to nail. Another crew supposed to cantilever floor joists out 5 inches for brick, did not. Seems they forgot. Packed out the rim joist three times. I don't think anyone ever notices. I've always been proud of my work. Thats why I make sure it's done right. I wouldn't say that snapping lines is always neccessary(on the foundation) There are houses that don't pay all that well up here. They are bricked bottom to top so the first floor doesn't have to be perfect. Once the deck is completed we snap all of our square lines and adjust from there. Stucco or siding it's gotta be good. Inside of brick if I have forgiveness. Then I can afford to spend time on more critical things like leveling the deck. I wouldn't say either way is right or wrong. I would say it all depends on the application.
Blue,
From the time Poured foundations started to gain popularity in my area for other than townhouses and condos until the time I framed the last house I will most likely ever frame, "Poured Foundation" and " Straight and Square" remained mutually exclusive terms.
The worst I've seen had a 24' wall 3" out of square.
there is a guy intown who builds on infill backtax lots in the hood... builds an all brick as close to zero maint. as you can get... builds the same house over & over .. he'll rent it or sell it... and they always look better than anything else around em...
they are on a slab
1st day they grade and rough plumb and get it inspected the next morning, by noon the slab is down.. and it's all but dead on square... the frame'n crew shows up the 3rd day and i swear the guys use a full sheet of osb cut corner to corner so that they have 2 "squares" and thats what they use for all the walls they even use it for plumb.. these are maybe 1600sf houses that are dry by the end of the 3rd day...
they might be junk but they look and I'm sure live alot better than the junk they replaced...
pony
Pony, I've often thought about doing that, but the extra weight just doesn't appeal to me.
blueJust because you can, doesn't mean you should!
Warning! Be cautious when taking any framing advice from me. There are some in here who think I'm a hackmeister...they might be right! Of course, they might be wrong too!
I do a lot of reno and repair work; on bad weeks I feel like my whole life is spent following slobs who don't care. I have seen supporting walls be 3" off layout on one side of a doorway...and spot-on on the other side. Its enough to make a guy despair....
On the other hand, Blue has a good point. It doesn't matter how the walls are laid out, as long as they are straight and square when they're built. If he can do that by eye, more power to him. I hear what he's saying, even though I am still chicken enough to want to double and triple-check my eye with a string or a laser if wind and string weight become issues.
For me, that extra 15 minutes spent snapping lines is cheap insurance against a potentially life-threatening call-back....
Dinosaur
'Y-a-tu de la justice dans ce maudit monde?